...but it's still fun to watch:

 

That' where they should test the EM-Drive.

 

That' where they should test the EM-Drive.

The EM-Drive people may not be able to afford it. I do wonder how much they charge an hour for an empty chamber with "nothing" in it.

 

The EM-Drive people may not be able to afford it. I do wonder how much they charge an hour for an empty chamber with "nothing" in it.

The company my dad worked for, which was an air compressor manufacturer, had a sign that said, "Air is free, until you try to compress it."

Perhaps they need a sign that says, "Air is free, until you don't want it."

 

It's the nothing that is really expensive.

 

NASA Space Power Facility.

It can achieve vacuum down to 1 µTorr, which is pretty damn hard under the best of circumstances in a small volume.

 

NASA Space Power Facility.

It can achieve vacuum down to 1 µTorr, which is pretty damn hard under the best of circumstances in a small volume.

That's just barely high vacuum today in chip manufacturing. We easily pump to 10 -12 Torr on some FE-SEM systems with Ion pumping and most Ion beam systems base vacuums are close to 10 -8 range inside man sized chambers after a re-qualification of operation. What's truly impressive about the SPF facility is the pumping speed to that vacuum level. The still use old fashioned oil diffusion pumps we studied long ago at the Varian Stanford Facility.
http://www.chemassociates.com/products/findett/diffusion_pump.pdf

SPF Vacuum Pumping System

• Five 2200 liters/s turbopumps
• Sixteen 48 in diameter LN2-baffled electrically heated, oil diffusion pumps (pumping speed - 700,000 liters/s)
• Ten 48 in diameter cryopumps with vacuum isolation gate valves (pumping speed - 600,000 liters/s)
• Pumpdown Times:
  Atmospheric pressure to 20 torr: 2 hrs
  20 torr to 10-3torr: 4 hrs
  10-3 torr to 10-6 torr: 2-6 hrs

UHV pumps
https://www.duniway.com/images/_pg/ion-pumps-operation-applications.pdf

 

That's just barely high vacuum today in chip manufacturing. We easily pump to 10 -12 Torr on some FE-SEM systems with Ion pumping and most Ion beam systems base vacuums are close to 10 -8 range inside man sized chambers after a re-qualification of operation. What's truly impressive about the SPF facility is the pumping speed to that vacuum level. The still use old fashioned oil diffusion pumps we studied long ago at the Varian Stanford Facility.
http://www.chemassociates.com/products/findett/diffusion_pump.pdf

SPF Vacuum Pumping System

• Five 2200 liters/s turbopumps
• Sixteen 48 in diameter LN2-baffled electrically heated, oil diffusion pumps (pumping speed - 700,000 liters/s)
• Ten 48 in diameter cryopumps with vacuum isolation gate valves (pumping speed - 600,000 liters/s)
• Pumpdown Times:
  Atmospheric pressure to 20 torr: 2 hrs
  20 torr to 10-3torr: 4 hrs
  10-3 torr to 10-6 torr: 2-6 hrs

UHV pumps
https://www.duniway.com/images/_pg/ion-pumps-operation-applications.pdf

I was speaking in regard to us common folk. I deal with vacuum quite a bit -- "virtual" leaks are a pain to diagnose and fix.

And contamination will kill you.